Sleeping close to a lead

Sean had a great start today in an AJGA tournament. He carded a 3-under par 69 to finish tied for 2nd place, only one stroke back.

Two more rounds and a lot of golf remain to be played.

And lessons to be learned.

I think tonight's lesson will be on how to so close to the lead in an event. He's been there once before in a smaller tournament, and it didn't go so well.

One thing that is different this time is that Sean isn't denying he is nervous. He now understands he will be playing nervous tomorrow. So the question is, how do you play nervous? How do you deal with it.

He made three calls as soon as he got into the car. One was to Bobby, with whom he had a lesson just before heading out of town. He wanted Bobby to know that things are working well. Indeed. I think Bobby just gave him a congrats.

The 2nd call was to his mom. Who no doubt is very excited and happy for him.

The third call was to his mentor at the club, Michael. After Sean told him where he was and what he had accomplished, Michael knew exactly what to say. He told Sean to accept the fact that he'll be nervous, and to focus on his targets and on his tempo.

I guess the idea is that if you need to focus on something other than your nerves, you might as well focus on something important and useful! Duh.

Today's round included a couple of milestones. Sean's first tournament round under par, and his first tournament round in the 60's.

We've seen this day coming for a while and so it really doesn't come as much of a surprise. He's been scoring really well leading up to today's round, even when not really playing well.

And after arriving at the course, he found he really liked it. The course sets up to his eye, and he recognized that some good scoring could be had if he just kept the ball in front of him.

Taken together, he's playing with a lot of confidence. He expects to get his pars and to score some birdies. Today, it was three birdies and an eagle.

When you are playing like that, things can be very, very easy.

We're happy for him because he has worked so hard to get to this point and has dealt with his share of disappointments and setbacks.